Sergii Shaulis Still-life Sculptures

The stainless steel, aluminum and bronze sculptures made by Sergii Shaulis are thought-provoking and often melancholic. They ask the viewer to meditate on the self, dreams and the inner world of the mind. The modernist works — like those of Constantin Brancusi and Amedeo Modigliani — focus on the simplicity of shape and form. He frequently uses human forms with missing body parts, such as the head or the torso, to transform something visually macabre into a symbolic commentary.

Shaulis’s father, Olescandr — also a sculptor — dissuaded his son from taking up the family business, which provided political monuments and park sculptures for the Ukrainian government. Instead, Shaulis studied engineering physics for three years but left without completing his degree. He subsequently enrolled in the Fine Arts program at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts.

After graduating, Shaulis teamed up with fellow sculptor Vasyl Semenyuk and created collaborative works, culminating in the development of a new form of casting technology. After his father died in 2003, Shaulis took the helm of his government commission workshop while continuing to create personal works. In 2007, he launched his series The Man Without a Rod; it features figures of men in utter despair, with many holding their heads in their hands. The sculptures are bodiless, having only arms, legs and heads.

Shaulis went on to produce his Maps of Identity series, an homage to his beloved Ukraine. His The Known Unknown series examines the past and present atrocities committed in his country. Several other groups of work speak to the fragility of the human condition and the inner prison of the mind. His sculptures are in private collections in Ukraine, England, Germany, Finland, Holland, Israel, Belgium, Australia and the United States.

On 1stDibs, find Sergii Shaulis’s abstract sculptures, figurative sculptures and more.